Newbie MM Questions!

[Neiska]

Hello everyone!

 

New player here with some questions. I have read some forum posts as well as some old posts from years ago. So first off, thanks for posting information and answering many of my questions beforehand!

 

I have decided to go with a Mastermind! After playing around with the different pets I decided to go with Bots. My highest hero is 26, but shes moving along well. But I still have some questions for any veteran players!

 

1. How relevant are the posts/guides from 7 years ago? Are they still good or has there been updates or changes?

 

2. I am going to go Bots, but I am not sure on a secondary. From what I have read, having a -regen power is important for killing bosses and high difficult targets at high level? If that's the case what do builds like Bots/Force fields? I mean if its possible to do high end content solo with force fields I would love to, (i tend to like defensive characters in games) but would doing so make soloing high level things with a high regenerate

hard?

 

I have tried using traps, as people say its good, but either i don't have the good powers yet or I am doing something wrong. The Triage beacon barely heals at all and is on a super long cooldown, the poison mortar does no damage, so i guess its more for debuffing?

 

3. What sort of Enhancements do you put on pets? Do they benefit from Accuracy, Damage and so on or are there special pet enhancements out there? Like from a recipe or something, because I haven't seen anything like that yet.

 

4. What is "Bodyguard mode" I keep seeing now and then? I tried using the ingame help tool but couldn't find anything.

 

5. Lastly a general game question. Is there a super group recuriting channel or tool I am missing? Because it seems pretty tricky to meet people and team up for missions and things. After running Death from Below a few times, I cant really find groups after that. I spend most of my time pretty much soloing contact missions to level up. But it would be wonderful to meet some people and make some friends.

 

Thanks bunches in advance!

[Redlynne]

2 hours ago, Neiska said:

4. What is "Bodyguard mode" I keep seeing now and then? I tried using the ingame help tool but couldn't find anything.

For simple reference ... Bodyguard Mode.

[PaxArcana]

3 hours ago, Neiska said:

1. How relevant are the posts/guides from 7 years ago? Are they still good or has there been updates or changes?

Still quite relevant, for the Primaries and Secondaries that were released at the time.  Especially discussions of controlling and managing your herd-of-cats Henchmen.

 

3 hours ago, Neiska said:

2. I am going to go Bots, but I am not sure on a secondary. From what I have read, having a -regen power is important for killing bosses and high difficult targets at high level? If that's the case what do builds like Bots/Force fields? I mean if its possible to do high end content solo with force fields I would love to, (i tend to like defensive characters in games) but would doing so make soloing high level things with a high regenerate hard?

Bots, as I understand it, have a bit of -regen in many of their attacks.

 

My main, back on Live, was Bots/FF.  I solo'd 99% of the way to level 50 - the only character I ever got there, in fact.  I don't know about soloing "high end" content - if you mean Trials and SFs, I have no clue, those weren't allowed to be done Solo back on Live.

3 hours ago, Neiska said:

3. What sort of Enhancements do you put on pets? Do they benefit from Accuracy, Damage and so on or are there special pet enhancements out there? Like from a recipe or something, because I haven't seen anything like that yet.

Accuracy is the #1 thing to slot on your pets.

If you have one pet, it spawns at your level.  Two pets, they spawn at -1.  Three, and they spawn at -2.  (All within a single "type) - e.g., two Battle Drones and a Protector, the Protector syould be at +0, the Drones at -1).  That means, everything you face at-level is going to be harder for them to hit ... so, more Accuracy (and some +ToHit through Leadership) is of especial importance for MM pets.

 

Damage is also good, of course.  If your pets have a significant debuff (e.g., -ToHit), slotting that can possibly help.

 

There's one thing that's useless to put on Pet Summon powers, though: recharge.  It doesn't affect the pets, it only affects how quickly you can re-summon them.

3 hours ago, Neiska said:

4. What is "Bodyguard mode" I keep seeing now and then? I tried using the ingame help tool but couldn't find anything.

When your pets are in Follow mode, and not "Attack my target" stance, any damage that happens to you is shared out with your pets.  This makes MMs much harder to kill when they use their pets as "ablative meat shields", heh.

 

3 hours ago, Neiska said:

5. Lastly a general game question. Is there a super group recuriting channel or tool I am missing? Because it seems pretty tricky to meet people and team up for missions and things. After running Death from Below a few times, I cant really find groups after that. I spend most of my time pretty much soloing contact missions to level up. But it would be wonderful to meet some people and make some friends.

There is a channel, "Looking for Group", that is server-wide.  Watch that.

 

Or, if you're up to it, start your own team, and advertise it there.  It's really not hard to lead/manage a team.  🙂

[kelly Rocket]

Bots do have two attacks (From the Assault Bot, of course, basically everything good comes from that one pet) that inflict -regen. I believe they do a total of -500% regen, which is nothing to sneeze at. It's half of what /Traps or /Rad can do, and those are well known AV/GM soloing sets.

 

I have a Bots/Time, and I've soloed some AVs, GMs, and TFs with him. I've soloed Babbage, and soloed the Psionic Clockwork King in a level 45ish mission arc. I've soloed the Numina Task Force, including taking down Jurrasik. I don't really recommend doing that, that fight was an absolute pain in the ass and I only had enough damage to beat him by using Kick, Sands of Mu, and the Blackwand in addition to the pets.

 

In my experience, if you can manage to stack immobs and immobilize an AV or GM, you should have no problem. If you can't, it's going to be a giant pain, because they run around like headless chickens and that keeps the (Very slow running) bots from doing their full DPS, and introduces gaps in the Assault Bot's chain (Due to running to get into range) that mean you lose coverage on your -regen.

Edited July 29, 2019 by kelly Rocket

[Neiska]

Hello agains!

 

First off, thank you for the answers. They have really helped! So I appreciate that. 😊

 

But I have another round of questions if people don't mind! I tried Bots/FF, but I wasn't really feeling FF. It was good, but entirely too passive for me. So I re-rolled and I am going Bots/Dark this time, so my questions are about that.

 

1. Which powers are "skippable" for a robo/dark setup? I am not planning on taking the rifle powers or the grenade from Robo, but Dark I'm not sure about. I am not sure If i will want to take Fearsome Stare, Petrifying Gaze, and Black Hole. The rest look useful though! Any advice on this?

 

2. Patron Powers - I haven't actually tried any of these out yet. But are there any of them that stand out for MM's in particular? Or are they more of a "if you feel like it" option?

 

3. Power Pools - Are there any power pools that are especially good for MM and their Pets? I was looking at Leadership in particular, my hope is the toggle modes affect pets. Is this the case and if so are there other pools noteworthy to make pets better?

 

4. Lastly, enhancements! Apparently there are sets for pets, but they are for the recharge pets, not the MM pets. So what do folks usually take since there are no pet specific stuff available for MMs to use? (which really sucks by the way!)

 

Thanks in advance!

 

P.S. - I have looked around and I haven't seen many examples of a Robo/Dark build that I can look at. Does anyone have a link to one please? Thanks bunches!

Edited August 5, 2019 by Neiska
added a P.S!

[kelly Rocket]

1. You don't want to skip Fearsome Stare. It's often what you open a fight with. Fear is better than it seems, and Stare inflicts a rather hefty -ToHit in an AoE. Don't skip it. Gaze and Black Hole can be skipped, yes. As can Howling Twilight, but it's so good as an AoE auto-hit hold.

 

2. I like pairing Soul Mastery with /Dark, but Mace also works (Power Boost amplifies your -ToHit). Personally I'd rather use Tentacles and Night Fall to stack -ToHit that way.

 

3. Leadership toggles do affect pets. Which makes Leadership very good for MMs, even though they have a low multiplier for them. Tactics in particular really helps out pets who have a disadvantage when trying to hit high level mobs. Other than that, the standard things that are good for everyone: Combat Jumping, Tough and Weave, Hasten, etc.

 

4. There are Pet Damage sets, in addition to the Recharge Intensive Pets sets, and also your Mastermind ATO sets can be slotted in pets. It's important for most Masterminds to get all 6 of the unique "Pet Aura" IOs, that give your pets bonus Defense and Resistance when they're inside your Supremacy range. Those IOs are in the Edict of the Master, Sovereign Right, Call to Arms, Expedient Reinforcement, Command of the Mastermind, and Mark of Supremacy sets.

 

 

[plewto]

20 hours ago, kelly Rocket said:

As can Howling Twilight, but it's so good as an AoE auto-hit hold.

 

 

Howling Twilight has a nice auto-hit -regen debuff

[Force Redux]

Big Bot's attacks can stack to -1000 Regen. They have a long duration as well, so it's easy to do.

[kelly Rocket]

On 8/6/2019 at 6:07 PM, Redux said:

Big Bot's attacks can stack to -1000 Regen. They have a long duration as well, so it's easy to do.

Unfortunately the targets you want that against the most (AVs and GMs) tend to run around like headless chickens, and the bots are slow, so this tends to mean you can't keep the -regen on them constantly.